Zumbador - Network

Had to kill some time in Century City yesterday (one of my rats having surgery) and found the Intaka nature reserve.Beautiful wetland...

Had to kill some time in Century City yesterday (one of my rats having surgery) and found the Intaka nature reserve.

Beautiful wetland reserve literally in the middle of sprawling lifeless mall /hotel /business park that is Century City.

The structures in the water are human-made heronries for the water birds to roost and nest on,safe from predators. There are massive tanks under them (halved jojo tanks) to catch their guano and prevent it from over acidifying the water.

The cormorants make the most amazing sounds, deep, resonant groans and a lot of chatter too.

This place is living proof that some people still find ways to make the world better for all living creatures.

Yesterday's writing research was about sleep paralysis, and how (in most people) it prevents your muscles from responding to what's...

Yesterday's writing research was about sleep paralysis, and how (in most people) it prevents your muscles from responding to what's happening in your dream so you don't go running around while you're asleep.

Apparently in some people that system gets messed up in different ways - most often as sleep paralysis (you're awake, but your body is still in "don't listen to the brain" mode so you can't move), some people keep sleeping but walk around, and in rarer cases, it's messed up in a different way, you wake up and you're aware of your surroundings, but the dream keeps going as well. That used to happen to me a lot, but hasn't for a few years.

Wouldn't you know it, it happened again last night. Woke up in the middle of the night, saw something climbing onto the bed that wasn't really there. I could talk to my husband without the dream being interrupted. Sort of like the inverse of a lucid dream.

Triggered by the research? Seems too much to be a coincidence?

I did a good thing (animal injury, happy ending)Last week I went to check up on my father because my sister was away for several days. I...

I did a good thing (animal injury, happy ending)

Last week I went to check up on my father because my sister was away for several days. I found her cat Oscar lying flat on the concrete, cold to the touch but still alive.

I didn't pause just took him to the emergency vet immediately.

Vet said he would have died if I hadn't been so quick. He's fine now, back home and eating after several days at the vet. Seems he'd been hit by a car and was in shock.

I think he's going to be staying indoors and in the catiary from now on...

The car-brain view of pedestrian's needs#Carcentric

The car-brain view of pedestrian's needs

#Carcentric

Watched "Parasite" last night.Wow.

Watched "Parasite" last night.

Wow.

I don't really want to get into the ethics of book piracy, but the fact that all my books have been pirated means that they have now...

I don't really want to get into the ethics of book piracy, but the fact that all my books have been pirated means that they have now been scraped by META Ai.

If you download pirated books, at least leave reviews on the sales sites.

Encountered a new use for alt text today: having to describe the pictures I sent to Turkish family via WhatsApp. Seems that the news and...

Encountered a new use for alt text today: having to describe the pictures I sent to Turkish family via WhatsApp. Seems that the news and social media blackout there doesn't block text, but you can't see images in WhatsApp.

(The current president of Turkey is trying to stop protest after he had the mayor of Istanbul arrested and imprisoned for trumped up charges. The mayor is likely to win the next election and replace him as president. Now there's a crackdown on any form of protest including online)

I sometimes see people asking whether they should come out to friends/family. This is how I decide whether I should come out (as nonbinary...

I sometimes see people asking whether they should come out to friends/family. This is how I decide whether I should come out (as nonbinary and autistic, in my case).

If the reason I want to come out is *because I desperately hope for a particular reaction* from the person, like understanding and acceptance, and I'm scared an unfriendly or judgemental reaction might devastate me, then I might not be ready.

If the reason is that *I want the person to know who and what I am*, no matter what their reaction might be, even if their reaction hurts me, then it might be ok for me to come out to that person. I might worry about their reaction, but I know that I still want to tell them even if it's not what I hope.

Of course, my situation is different from other peoples. I have a lot of privilege as a middle class white person who can sort of pass for cis and neurotypical if I have to. So your mileage will definitely vary!

#ActuallyAutistic #nonbinary

I left the door open again and the field mice got inside the house again, and ended up in the live catch trap. By now I think they're...

I left the door open again and the field mice got inside the house again, and ended up in the live catch trap. By now I think they're telling one another about this amazing way to get peanut butter.

I used to take them 2 km away to a nature reserve to release them (21 of them one by one, or the same one 21 times, on my bicycle!) but now I'm just releasing them back into my garden. I felt bad about breaking up their families.

#UrbanGarden

If you're feeling hopeless about human nature and what happens when times get bad, you might want to read these words from a woman who...

If you're feeling hopeless about human nature and what happens when times get bad, you might want to read these words from a woman who survived the siege of Sarajevo:

"I shared food when I had it, even though I often knew I wouldn't have a crumb the next day. Which was no big achievement, because nearly everyone did the same."

(You might need to scroll down to see Dee Xtrovert's comment if the link doesn't take you directly there)

DeeXtrovert on MetaFilter
https://www.metafilter.com/78669/What-if-things-just-keep-getting-worse#2430771

Grumbling about Nedbank(Helping my father with his financial stuff)Nedbank has removed the ability to phone a specific branch. You can only...

Grumbling about Nedbank

(Helping my father with his financial stuff)
Nedbank has removed the ability to phone a specific branch. You can only call the national call center.
The national call center can't tell you whether forms you handed in at the branch have been process or not.
You have to go in to the branch to do that. They don't even have an email address you can use. Apparently the individual staff have email addresses, but when I gave them the staff member's name, they couldn't give me her email address. I asked her for her address when I was there last, and she said she'd send me an email, which she did not.

So in this amazing age of information technology, the only way to know the status of my application is to go to the branch and sit in queue.

Wonderous.

Saw the toad again! Hiding next to the filter in my backyard pond.#UrbanGarden

Saw the toad again! Hiding next to the filter in my backyard pond.

#UrbanGarden

Looking for an alternative to gmail: from what I've read, Tuta Mail has a reputation for bad UX design, which doesn't sound...

Looking for an alternative to gmail: from what I've read, Tuta Mail has a reputation for bad UX design, which doesn't sound attractive to me. I see people recommend Eclipso, does anyone know anything about them?

When filling in my cell phone number on a web form, I'm never sure if I should include the "0" at the front.Sometimes the form...

When filling in my cell phone number on a web form, I'm never sure if I should include the "0" at the front.

Sometimes the form will insert the country code in front of the phone number field, sometimes they'll have two fields, one labelled "Country code" or just "code", so I'm not sure what they mean?

If the field could clearly show how many digits they expect, that would help.

I watched the last episode of Exandria Unlimited Divergence last night. Oh my god the pay off! The players' and characters'...

I watched the last episode of Exandria Unlimited Divergence last night. Oh my god the pay off! The players' and characters' realities overlapped and blurred, just stunning.

A group of level 0 characters survive the aftermath of a war between the gods, DMd by Brennan Lee Mulligan.
The game is a love letter to Matthew Mercer.

#CriticalRole

Taxi Crime in Cape TownSome of my husband's students are from Langa, (used to be a township, still mostly a non white suburb) .They...

Taxi Crime in Cape Town

Some of my husband's students are from Langa, (used to be a township, still mostly a non white suburb) .
They can't easily get to his class because there are no buses, trains, or taxis that get them close enough.
The school sends them an uber, which is not ideal, it's often late, and it's expensive.
Yesterday these kids' uber was hijacked by taxi drivers who forced the uber driver to take the kids to a taxi rank, and refused to give him his car back unless he paid R1500.
They were shouting at the kids the whole time, angry because they took an uber instead of a taxi.
The kids were trapped at the rank until someone from the school came to get them and gave the uber driver the ransom money for the car.
These taxi guys are nothing but gangsters and thugs. And there doesn't seem to be anything anyone can do about them.
Those kids are already at such a disadvantage because of poverty. What are they supposed to do?

I have a writing-assistant today. #Rats #RatsOfMastodon #Ratstodon #PetsOfMastodon

I have a writing-assistant today.

#Rats #RatsOfMastodon #Ratstodon #PetsOfMastodon

Strange experience of the day, took my father to a doctor and:Wallpaper in the high end specialist's office that was a wall-sized,...

Strange experience of the day, took my father to a doctor and:

Wallpaper in the high end specialist's office that was a wall-sized, floor to ceiling, high res image of a bare concrete wall with big cracks, exposed and rusting reinforcements, and rust stain dribbling down.

One big image, no repeat pattern, artfully colour graded, it looked like a real wall until you paid attention.

Everything else in the office was pristine, original artwork, live plants, sparkling clean floor and furniture, air-conditioning.

The expensive reproduction of a ruined wall is a luxury, the actual wall couldn't possibly exist in that place.

I had cognitive dissonance the entire time I was there.

Caught this little visitor in the live trap. Four-Striped Field Mouse. It had been foraging in the lounge. Released it in the garden and...

Caught this little visitor in the live trap. Four-Striped Field Mouse. It had been foraging in the lounge. Released it in the garden and closed the gap it used to get into the house, but it will probably be back...

It moves in speedy jerks, exactly like a stop motion animation.

#UrbanGarden

Nonbinary grumbling about dysphoriaI bought myself a beautiful green dress, that I love wearing around the house. It reminds me of a dress I...

Nonbinary grumbling about dysphoria

I bought myself a beautiful green dress, that I love wearing around the house. It reminds me of a dress I had when I was a child.

But today I wore it when I went out to the shops, and turns out, there's a big difference wearing something feminine in the privacy of my home, vs wearing it outside.

Ugh! That feeling of being PERCEIVED. Makes my skin crawl.

I need to work on my internal sense of who I am so that this doesn't bother me so much.